jcombel writes: Too often lately I look at the Slashdot blurb, then read then article, then groan. The article submitted was a copy/pasta of another article, which was itself a copy/pasta of a press release. It often takes two or three clicks to get to the original information, or maybe even a web search on the topic because none of the articles actually linked the study. With enough digging, you find why the source was omitted: it is inconvenient for one reason or another, maybe a policy agenda, or maybe just the truth didn't make as sensational a headline.

Ben Goldacre (if there was a thing called a slashdot favorite, he'd be it) writes about how this is getting out of hand, and proposes a mindset for discerning facts on the internet: "I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you."Link to Original Source